FYI

EAST NORRITON — It’s a good thing high-octane fuel gushes through the veins of the Philadelphia Auto Show guys.

Without it, the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia, presenters of the show, might not be moving the needle into a 16th successful year behind the wheel of one of the country’s most influential auto shows.

The Philadelphia Auto Show itself is making its 113th appearance this year — kicking into action at the Pennsylvania Convention Center Feb. 8 through Feb. 16 — but prior to the arrival of Montana-born Kevin Mazzucola as executive director in 1998, the organization had hired a production company to oversee the show.

Advertisement

“We had a very aggressive board at the time that decided who was best to produce the Philly Auto Show, but the Philly auto dealers and people, not some outside production company,” recalled Mazzucola, sitting in the ADAGP’s East Norriton offices. “Starting in 1999 we made the risky jump to say, ‘We’re going to do it ourselves.’ I was fortunate enough to hire some good people and off we went. We did it all in-house and we did just as good as the previous year when we had the professional, experienced production company.”

Thanks to Mazzucola and his staff, the Philly Auto Show accelerates quicker and handles better than ever as it hosts 41 auto makers this year, all showing off their latest, shiniest and high-tech-iest wares.

“We have a passion for the show,” Mazzucola said. “It’s the only show we have, and we’re from Philadelphia. No one knows the show better than us. You can go through all the nuts and bolts of the things we did to be successful, but it all stems from being the custodial of the show that’s the oldest in the country. That was the impetus for all the changes we did to make it into one of the top shows in the country.”

The area’s candy store for any car buff needing to soothe an aching sweet tooth shifted back into high gear three years ago after being stuck in neutral from a stagnant economy and near-comatose auto industry.

“Considering what has occurred in 2009 with the Great Recession and where we are now, the auto industry has been a leading economic juggernaut in leading us out of what happened,” Mazzucola said. “When you look at sales being $10.4 million in 2009, and they predict somewhere around $16.2 million vehicle sales this year, that’s unprecedented growth. We’ve had five straight years of increased sales, which hasn’t happened since the ’30s. That’s wonderful to see for the industry and for the country.”

Mazzucola noted that more new cars were sold by Montgomery County’s roughly 70 dealerships last year than in any of the five counties served by the Automobile Dealers Association: 43,362, to be precise.

Thirty percent of all sales in the Philadelphia market are influenced by the show.

“The health of the manufacturers is much better, and with that you see more investment in product, more investment in the displays they bring. From the manufacturers’ perspective, if you sell the same amount of cars in 2014 as you did in 2013, you’re losing market share, because the whole pie is getting bigger. So you need to get bigger just to keep up with the pie. And so, when you have that kind of growth overall from the market, manufacturers are very aggressive in expanding where they are in the marketplace.”

The result, Mazzucola added, is the widest variety of vehicles in any manufacturer’s portfolio ever to roll off the assembly line.

All of them will be gleaming with their best showroom sparkle on the floor of the Convention Center.

“The Chrysler 200 midsize sedan is brand new from the ground up and very important to Chrysler, who never had a strong entry in the midsize segment,” Mazzucola said, touching on the success stories of the Accord, Camry, Fusion and Malibu.

On the flip side of Kia introducing the luxury model K900, with a sticker price of around $70,000, high-end automaker Mercedes-Benz is debuting a $30,000 CLA-Class sedan at the show.

The stunning variety of wheels makes it easy for you to “find your next” — as the 2014 slogan invites — from more than 700 vehicles on display in the cavernous Convention Center space.

“‘Find your next’ is different for every person,” Mazzucola said. “Your ‘next’ might be a new sports car, mine might be something economically strong for my daughter to go to college in, or maybe I need a large SUV because I’m going to the shore this year. It shows the variety that whatever you’re looking for, whatever your next purchase is going to be, automotively speaking, you’ll find it at the show. And most people have kind of honed what they want, and they either confirm that at the show, or they see other product that they had not anticipated meeting their needs, or they didn’t look at that closely before, but they will look at now that they’re at the show. And it’s all under one roof, you don’t have to go dealer to dealer, and there’s no sales.”

In between the zoomy sportscars, like the 2015 Mustang, and the econo-minded machines, the bread-and-butter workhorses of the industry, pickup trucks, are not so quietly staging a war all their own, Mazzucola said.

“With housing construction rebounding and stabilizing and the consumer having this pent-up demand, the pickup market for 2013 was up 20 percent. Three out of the top five vehicles sold in this country are pickup trucks. RAM, GM, Ford and Toyota have all redesigned pickups in the last three years, and you’ll see that on the show floor.”

Fresh from a sensation-stirring stay at the Detroit Auto Show, the 2015 Ford F-150 pickup — 700 pounds lighter than its predecessors due to engineers’ creative use of aluminum — will make its East Coast debut on Feb. 8.

Also highlighting the annual celebration of sheet metal are nine ride-and-drive opportunities, including a couple of indoor options from Jeep and Toyota, and the brand-new Philadelphia Auto Show app.

“Everything we do at the show was looked at as, ‘How does it help the consumer make a decision?’ ” Mazzucola said. “The app is beneficial for a segment of attendees, and in a certain way it will accentuate what the consumer does at the show. They can purchase tickets with the app and see the floor plan. But our program book is still the most popular item because every vehicle in the country is listed, with stats. People hold onto them for a long time.”

As much as technology can enhance a car-buying experience, it can’t replace sensory involvement, allowed Mazzucola, who called the Philly Auto Show “‘the Internet in reverse.’ And that’s the beauty of it. The Internet is great — and so are newspapers, magazines, radio and TV — but it’s certainly not tangible. The show is a tangible thing. That’s what makes it so unique and so special to consumers in our area. There’s nothing like an auto show, because you can see, touch, feel, bring the kids and see if they fit very well into that SUV or minivan. You can see what that shade of charcoal really looks like, compared to the white pearlescent.”

An automobile is the second biggest purchase anybody will ever make, Mazzucola said.

“And it’s a very personal purchase. Usually a car says a lot about what a person’s perception of themselves is really like. I feel really good about this year’s show,” he added, “and I think people are ready to come and enjoy the show, have fun and do a little research and see what their ‘next’ will be.”